Glasgow

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Crime Scene Investigation

What connects a Highland wilderness, a former east-coast fishing town and Glasgow’s respectable West End? The answer? Crime! But fear not, it’s fictional crime I’m talking about!

Assynt, Arbroath and Glasgow’s West End are the settings used by three crime writers in their latest novels. And the locations could hardly be more different. Yet even though they may not have much in common geographically, each one is shaped by the passage of time and the layers of history that add, bit by bit, to their unique heritage.

Whether the stark – and at times terrifying – beauty of Assynt, or the long, low, narrow streets of Arbroath, or the grand, self-important buildings of Victorian Glasgow, location plays a huge part in a successful novel. An authentic setting will draw readers in, help create a gripping atmosphere and be a believable backdrop to the twists and turns of the author’s tale. Readers have to believe in the setting as much as in the plot and the characters. Credibility matters.

Surprisingly, though, settings don’t necessarily have to be dark and Gothic to create a menacing atmosphere. That impenetrable Victorian fog, or the flickering candlelight, or the howling of a gigantic hound out in the mire aren’t the only ways to create suspense. Just the opposite in fact, for in the hands of a skillful writer, even the most ordinary, everyday settings can become something very much more sinister. We all like to feel safe in our home territory, but what if that’s the very place where the threat lies? In fact, sometimes that’s the most effective way crime writers can unsettle us: take the familiar – the known – give it an unexpected twist and suddenly it becomes very menacing indeed!

In the Highlands I’m often struck by that curious juxtaposition between the breathtaking landscapes and the tiny settlements scattered across them. Towering mountains and huge skies. All that space and yet so few people. What made Gareth Halliday chose this place for his debut novel From the Shadows?

Moving south-east, I suspect that even if you’ve never been to Arbroath, you’ll have heard of its abbey. Arbroath Abbey is special. Without doubt it’s lasting importance rests on an event that took place 700 hundred years ago, yet one which still resonates today. In 1320 Bernard, the Abbot of Arbroath and Chancellor of Scotland under Robert the Bruce, drafted a document which became known as the Declaration of Arbroath, one of the key documents in Scottish history. A document that contains the famous lines, “For so long as but a hundred of us remain alive, we shall never under any circumstances submit to the domination of the English. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.” And this is the ancient town where Jackie McLean sets her crime novels.

For Michael Mackenzie, it’s the University of Glagow, one of the oldest in the country that lies at the centre of his work. And with good reason! But to find out what that reason is, you’ll have to read the article in the Jan/Feb issue of iScot magazine!

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Take a walk round Bowling Basin – and bring your dog!

Even on a very chilly day, it’s hard not be impressed by the changes taking place at Bowling Basin and Harbour. Many of the rotting hulks have gone, landscaping is well underway, and the old Customs House is the setting for new ventures. Looking at it now, it can be hard to believe that the canal closed in 1963 and that it was only after decades of campaigning that it was finally re-opened in 2001.

Bowling is a small village that sits on the northern shore of the Firth of Clyde, between the towns of Dumbarton and Clydebank, and is the western entrance to the Forth and Clyde Canal. The canal opened in 1790, and if you follow the towpath, it will take you from Bowling all the way to Grangemouth, across the narrowest stretch of Lowland Scotland, linking not only two of Scotland’s finest rivers, the Clyde and the Forth, but also the west and east coasts of the country.

But your jaunt needn’t end there for it’s possible to take a spin in the amazing Falkirk Wheel and be lifted upwards onto the Union Canal and thereby onwards into the heart of Edinburgh. The whole route is excellent for both cyclists and walkers. And obviously for boats too!

At Bowling, you’ll find the marina, and the canal itself, have lots of interesting boats to have a look at: from the sleek and shiny to the slightly more rickety and ramshackle. You’ll also find that the old railway arches have been tastefully refurbished, housing shops and a cafe with a difference: the Dug Cafe, where we saw lots of dogs and their owners, and walkers and cyclists, enjoying tea and toast. Although we no longer have a dog ourselves, it was good to find a cafe that is so welcoming to (well-behaved) dogs.

A tidal tepee!

Walking along the towpath you can admire the fine engineering and the powerful gates of the locks, or watch the varied and colourful wildfowl on the water. All very peaceful. Yet there would have been none of this tranquillity in its heyday, when Bowling would have been full of ships of every shape, size and description, all laden with cargoes of timber, coal and fish, with other boats being built or repaired in the thriving workshops and yards in the basin. The whole place would have been buzzing with life and full of noise and smells.

The old Customs House with the disused railway bridge behind

All this activity was added to when the first railway station opened in 1850. Then, some forty years later, a second station opened, this one on the Caledonian Railway’s Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire Line. That line closed sixty-seven years ago, in 1951, but the trackbed is now used as a cyclepath through the village. The industrial history of Scotland, although much of it relatively recent in historical terms, is nonetheless fascinating. And there’s plenty of it here at Bowling.

But there’s a much more ancient connection here too! Bowling is only a short distance away from Old Kilparick, which marked the western end of the Antonine Wall, the northernmost barrier of the vast Roman Empire. Rome’s very own final frontier, you could say! The Wall had sixteen forts (with many fortlets in between), all linked by a road known as the Military Way. Commissioned by Emperor Antonius Pius in AD 142, it was abandonned less than a decade after completion. It seems those ancient Caledonians were, very understandably, not too keen on having Roman masters! But, tempora mutantur, as those self-same Romans would have said, and thankfully you’ll find that there’s a very different welcome for the visitors of today!